King Dedede vs Pit vs Ryu Hayabusa vs Zero 2008
Results Round One Monday, October 6th, 2008 Stats and Analysis *Ryu Hayabusa overperformed by +6.11%, the #8 most impressive performance of 2008 *King Dedede underperformed by '-4.25%', the #22 most disappointing performance of 2008 That says it all. And believe it or not, this was actually considered to have been a GOOD result for Ryu Hayabusa, to have been mostly attributed to his picture. Zero was a once bright star who has been falling faster and faster ever since. Once good enough for 48% on Sonic, doing better on MEGA MAN than Snake could, since his match with Mario things have gone pretty much downhill. That was, until last year - the Maverick Hunter ended up shockingly close to Crono, both looking good and foretelling the downfall of the Noble Niner in the process. Sure, he got killed in the next round, but Link was there. Mega Man always gets crushed by Link. The bottom line was that Zero had looked good in this format, he wouldn't have had a problem even if he hadn't, and with two pieces of fodder from the same game tearing each other apart he would have the lion's share of the votes to work with in tearing down Hayabusa again. Well, either the star has regained its downward trajectory, or the universe just hates BT. I mean, seriously, just look at those results. The match started innocuously enough, with Zero off to a fast start - but it really just wasn't as fast as it "should" have been, especially considering Ryu H's own pretty poor board vote. Still, just a hiccup, right? Not so much - Ryu was stalling, stalling, stalling, and Zero was struggling to put on a lead during his best time. Mega Man characters are about as frontloaded as you can imagine - if you can beat them during the first three hours, you've got the match in the bag. Ryu H didn't do that, but he managed to keep the match within reach - and as soon as the clock ticked 4 am, he began his unstoppable comeback. Zero tried to keep his head above water with the during school vote, but it was for naught - Ryu H actually ended up taking the lead BEFORE the ASV, and 3 pm was just a formality on top of all of that. It wasn't the most impressive of wins, but we're talking about one of the biggest direct margin reversals EVER. Hayabusa shocked the world in this match, even more than he had when he beat Riku and Roxas combined last year. In fact, this one was even MORE shocking, because we had written that all off as a fluke after he went and bombed to a loss in the very next round. Then the gears in our heads started turning - why had he bombed last time? The only thing that seemed to change was the introduction of Solid Snake, and that didn't make much sense... but just to keep everyone on their toes, he was waiting in the wings AGAIN next round. Still, for the time Ryu Hayabusa got his moment in the sun, and while I actually like Zero more than him personally (not in the contests though, eww BT), the most skilled character in all of gaming with the best action games in the business deserves a good upset win under his belt. By the way, I say "upset" in the sense of the board - Ryu's bracket support was INCREDIBLE, and once again the casuals ended up humiliating us in a Zero match. Oh, and let us not leave without giving token mention of Pit and Dedede. See uh I told you Pit was more popular! Ugh two more Brawlers out of the contest less than a hundred to go Match Trends Ngamer's Same Day Analysis Match Prediction Last Known Values * Zero - 33.32% (2007) * Ryu H - 23.73% (2007) * Pit - 15.73% (2007) * Dedede - new Zero is pretty clearly a stud in this format. I mean yeah, he folded underneath Link/Crono/Vincent, but who wouldn't have? YOU? Doubtful! Actually I was remembering that match and briefly considering whether or not I should consider, if even just briefly, the Ryu upset. But then I remembered that firstly Mega Man 9 was going to be tearing it up right around this time, and secondly that Zero flat out destroyed Ryu 1v1 back in '05. Hm, actually looking at it now, that was only a 63% beating, not as bad as I thought. But still, even if Ryu gets extra points in this format for looking so cool in the match pic or gains ASV strength for being the only Xbox option, there's no way I could imagine him keeping this competitive for the top spot. Likewise I'd be shocked if either of tonight's Brawl options were able to do anything surprising here. Even if that game had been turning newcomers into GameFAQs Contest superstars left and right, I don't see how either of these guys could get enough of an advantage over the other to upstage Ryu. And since we instead seem to be finding out that it takes Melee + Brawl + something else to not flop out here in 2008, I fear we may be in for something more on par with today's awful Banjo/Olimar showings. Between the two, I'm thinking Triple D should have a bit of an advantage thanks to his Kirby appeal, but Pit looks really cool in the picture and will hopefully be able to keep him from running away. Yeah, short writeup there since I don't see anything too wild happening... but prove me wrong, Dedede! * Zero - 36.45% * Ryu Hayabusa - 27.41% * King Dedede - 20.77% * Pit - 15.37% I... don't like that very much! Ack... Ngamer Says: Zero > Ryu Next Day Review Well, color me surprised! I guess you can chalk up this Ryu shocker to those of us "in the know" wearing our previous result blinders... but come on now, this wasn't like Snake/Mega Man, where even though MM kept winning you got the feeling Snake was never all that far behind- this was an old fashioned 63% beatdown! You're not supposed to turn around a 26% deficit in just a few years! I guess MM9 alone isn't enough to make up for three years of doing nothing as a series; either that or these low tier Brawlers are taking a bigger bite out of Zero's pie than I would have thought possible. The good thing is we get to find out the answer in just a few weeks. Will Zero pull back out in front of Ryu with no other Nintendo options? Will Vivi instead capitalize on being the only Square/RPG option in a room full of badasses? Will Ryu take full advantage of being the only Xbox option and surprise us again? Wow, this format can be pretty awesome in those rare cases when you clear out the clutter and the fodder and the jokes and throw three legitimate options of near-equal strength against one another- who knew? External Links * Match Updates * Guru Match Predictions * Oracle Match Results • Previous Match • Next Match Category:2008 Contest Matches